Why? Well, last week was interesting. To say the least. I got hit rather suddenly by the migraine from Hades last Monday. It laid me out for the next three days.
I’m in catch-up mode now, and aside from the usual weekly collection of links you probably won’t see anything new in this space this week.
Come back next week when I hope to be back on schedule.
I’ve always viewed myself as an article writer. Thoughts of writing a book have crossed my mind over the years, but the main thrust of my freelancing has always been writing articles and essays.
In fact, I’ve found myself getting very frustrated and very annoyed if I can’t write articles. That’s definitely been the case over the last 14 months or so. I’ve been putting a lot of energy into the consulting business that I co-own and that hasn’t left a lot of time for article writing.
Throughout December of last year, I did quite a bit of reflection and re-evaluation. And I realized that while I wasn’t writing as many articles as I wanted to it didn’t bother me. Definitely not as much as it did in the past.
Why? I’ve got my consulting business. It’s going fairly well. It’s taking up a lot of my time, but that’s time well invested. That’s where the change of focus comes in.
From now on, I won’t be writing as many articles as I did even in the last year or so. My business partner and I are planning a number of things over the next 11 months — many of which will be of interest to writers and freelancers in general. I’ll still be writing the occasional article, and regularly blogging in this space and elsewhere.
It should be an interesting shift. Will it work, though? There’s only one way to find out …
Photo credit: ariadna from morguefile.com
It’s that time of year again. I’m taking a much-needed break over the next couple of weeks to relax and recharge. During that time I’m also going to be seriously mapping out a new direction in my freelance writing career. Heady stuff, but potentially well worth it.
So posting will be sparse from now until the early January. I’ll be back to my usual schedule the week of January 4, 2010.
Each December, I take some time to go over how the current year’s freelancing went and to plan for next year. This year, though, I’ve decided to take another route. December has been a time to reflect on my freelance career.
I’ve been quite fortunate in that I’ve been able to make a good living over the last few years as a full-time freelance writer (mainly freelance technical writing). Even when I was working for The Man, my freelance writing brought in a decent to substantial portion of my income, and allowed me to express myself in ways that I couldn’t in my day job. Admittedly, that day job also involved writing but …
Regardless, I should be happy with what I’ve done and how my career has progressed. But on reflection, even at this early stage, I’ve come to realize that I haven’t really achieved many of the goals that I had when I started out as a freelance writer in the early 1990s. I won’t go into my usual feelings about not having done as much as I could.
In fact, I get the feeling that I’ve become more than just a little comfortable and complacent in what I’m doing. For me, that’s not a good thing. I really need to challenge myself. If I don’t, then writing really just becomes a monotonous exercise.
On top of that, I’ve come to the realization that I’m pulling myself in too many directions. Things are going fairly well, but I’m also feeling very fatigued mentally. There’s so much that I want to do, and so much that I need to do. The problem is giving those things a priority. And it’s becoming harder and harder to find time to tackle all the want to do projects.
The plan? Over the next few weeks, I’ll be doing a major re-evaluation of the direction in which I want my freelancing career to go. It could involve a number of minor tweaks. Or, a radical change could be in the air.
More on this in 2010.
Photo credit: jdurham from morguefile.com
I’m deep in a couple of assignments and am also trying to finish up the script for a presentation. Along with living my life and attending to my corporate contract. So, posting will be a bit thin over the next week or so.
Here are a few posts to this space that you might have missed. And if you didn’t, why not give them another look?
